


Dear ...

by littlehands



Category: Alias
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drama, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-23
Updated: 2010-05-23
Packaged: 2017-10-09 16:36:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlehands/pseuds/littlehands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Answer the question, Mr. Vaughn. Do you still talk to her, like she was here?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear ...

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kira's B-day. Pre season 3 angst, my interpration of what Vaughn did after 'the telling'

_You'll never guess._

_You know the girl you said I'd meet someday?_

_Well, I've got something to confess._

_She picked me up on Friday._

  
Looking across the square, surrounded by people, her face is still stuck in my mind. Not like yours, not with such careful remembrance of little details; like the flush of your cheek, always more carnation then crimson. Her lips were like blotted blood, bright against her features. She was waiting for me last evening, sitting in the lobby of the hotel. A cool, collected hunter, lying in wait down for me. It's not good to think of yourself as pray, but I do, with the government following me everywhere. She was then this time, her suit was navy, blending into the plush chairs.

I was coming in from my afternoon spent wondering the streets, looking at all the faces. I'm never just walking any more, always looking for signs in the faces that pass me on the boulevard. She must have been warned not to come at night. One man went down like a sack of bricks, a quick glance at his credentials told me what I needed to know. NSA now; must be something big. But it didn't concern me at the time, since I knew it didn't have anything to do with you. How could I have been so wrong.

She got up at the sight of me, standing between me and the stairwell. She told me that she wanted to talk to me, I stood silently. After producing a signed order, the small part of me that was still ruled by the practical gave in. And I pointed to the bar.

  


_Asked me if she reminded me of you._

_I just laughed and lit a cigarette,_

_Said "That's impossible to do."_

  
The bar was dim, shadowing her face in shades of green and burnt yellow. Her purpose was clear as soon as she opened her mouth. She need to talk to me about your mother, and had been sent to London to find me and depose me. I spit back at her that I wasn't hard to find considering I had registered under my own name and billed the charges to the CIA. She laughed for a moment, those tin peels of someone who doesn't really understand the nature of the world. She kept talking but at this point my drink had arrived.

So I didn't hear her mention your name the first time. She leaned in, almost too close, jacket straining to contain all of her. She said it again, clear in my mind, the vodka hadn't kicked it yet. My body tenses, want to leap down her throat and rip out the words before they escape. Take it back my heart screams.

Are you still under the impression that Ms. Bristow is alive?

She's alive.

I was told that you would be hostile, but Mr. Vaughn you can't really think that.

Show me proof.

Her remains were found.

Are you as stupid as you appear to be?

Or is it that you just can't stand talking to another woman? Do you still talk to her?

Why are you really here?

Answer the question, Mr. Vaughn. Do you still talk to her, like she was here?

  
That's where my hands falters, my mind shaken, and I reach for a cigarette. I find the pack in the pocket of the track suit jacket I bought to fit in with the crowds. Taking one out, grasping for the lighter, hand clutching the pack. I had given up when I joined the agency, but I had smoked all through college, when I was stressed or depressed; which was a good amount of the time. The smoke burns now, lungs straining, but it's the idea of it, the feel of it in my fingers. She wrinkles her nose but doesn't say anything.

No I don't talk to her

Taking another drag to fill the void the lie left in me. I tell her with a unflinching stare. She sips her water like a good girl and looks at her shoes.

  


_My life's gotten simple since._

_And it fluctuates so much._

  
It was best for me to leave, you told me in the middle of the night, as I lay awake sweating in the heat. All of the city reminded me of you. I thought about going to Franc, but it would be all of tempting to lose myself in the farms and hills of my young life. So I just booked a flight to London, thinking that I'd just pick a place when I got there. You told me to stay in London, you liked hearing about my walks, you always loved London, even though your attempt at an accent was always below par.

For every moment that I think you are alive, there are millions that you are dead in my arms. Some days it feels like you are right besides me. It's so simple, just to talk to you, easy to forget that we were ever parted. Are parted, depending on my mood, you are past and present tense and it changes all the time.

I just walk, smoke, drink; then come home to you. You chide me for my self destruction, but you always listen.

  


_Happy and sad and back again,_

_I'm not crying out too much._

  
Days are better then others. After dumping my mobile in the Thames, I saw the irony in that; your eyes glowed when I told you that. Since I've cut myself off, all my past in rooted in you. My life started with the first sight of you, before that it all seems like a dream, a faint movie. I left all my suits in LA, even though you protested. Your hands are so pale, like moonlight on a field. I live in jeans, dark wash so they stain your legs when you get caught in that first rainstorm, and trainers. I still wear a blue oxford, even though it makes you cry.

You cry a lot, and sometimes I join you; after too many drinks, not touching. You barely let me touch you anymore. Most of the time I can't see you. But sometimes I can feel the bed sink besides me; after a bottle of gin, you touched my hair. Like a soft feather, shivers down my spine. Most days are fine, as fine as they can be.

  


_Think about you all the time,_

_It's strange and hard to deal._

  
There are days where I don't see you, were I try not to talk to you. It's hard not to late at night in the quiet of our room, with the windows blocking out the noise from the streets. Hard not to turn to you, like you use to turn to me or at least I like to think; dark warehouse. I think of the pier when I'm alone, wish I could have done more. I can't ever hold you, touch is the only thing I have anymore, that elicits anything in me.

When it is at it's best or worse, depending on how you look at it, I think of us in bed, making love to you. That's when the bottle isn't enough. When I can't make the pain go away, when I can't stop the images, flashing like a slide show in my mind. I see you dead and in my arms at the same instant and I can't take it. I'm covered in so much, more then you think you know, your blood is the freshest layer on my dirty hands.

It always gets worse before it gets better.

  


_Think about you lying there,_

_And those blankets lie so still._

_Nothing breathes here in the cold,_

_Nothing moves or even smiles._

  
I never thought that it would be this way. Not that I always saw us living forever in the perfect bliss of a big house. But then again, I can't say that I didn't see the separation coming. I just thought that it would be me, leaving you alone. Somehow, even with all that you've been through, I thought that I'd leave this world first. In all the nightmares it never turned out this way. There was always a body, some tangible proof that you ever existed. Without that, it's only my memories which are getting so lost in the mess that I have become. Proof, something I could morn over, cry. Something to bury, even though I know you didn't want that.

You told me, late at night when we talked about such morbid things; you didn't want a big funeral, just the beach on a clear day. A few people, you'd say, and with a soft whisper, you wanted me to scatter the ashes, no matter what. As much as it frightened me that you had it all planned out, it was strangely comforting. Knowing you were just flesh and blood; the body and the blood, take this in remembrance of me.

  


_I've been thinking some of suicide,_

  
When I lie in bed, I don't sleep; like Hamlet I fear to dream. The bed is cold, I wait for you to come and warm me, but when you do arrive, you are like ice. Colder then cold, sucking what little warmth that the bourbon brings. I try to fine you among the pillows and the covers but you are always just out of my view. I talk to the shadows of you, splintered light, wishing I could see you. Some days, wishing so much that it clouds my vision.

The first time was back in LA, within a week of the fire. I sat for hours in the corner of my - although I thought of it as our - room, staring at the window. Covered in grief, the blanket of madness descends; the gun was in my palm. But I didn't do it, not because I didn't want it, my phone rang. My mother on the other end, soft voice, hint of accent, asking if I was alright alone. And for the first time, I cried. Then I couldn't stop, going back to the burned out wreckage to cry over the charred site, spilling salt into the wound.

  


_But there are bars out here for miles._

  
The second was after I found that the feeling of gin in my throat made me forget for a brief moment. It also in the end, makes the pain stronger, a cumulative affect. This time it wasn't a gun, but the shattered bits of the mirror cutting into my skin. I remember the mirror in your room, seeing you smile over your shoulder at me; in my bathroom. That's the time I saw you, sitting on the edge of the tub, face blank. I smashed the mirror, so you couldn't see who I had become. The glass was too tempting, reflecting my shattered soul back up at me from the tile floor. My pulse raced when I pressed it to my veins, again I didn't go through with it. This time I just passed out, woke up sore, cold, and covered in little cuts where the glass had broken the skin, the gin took away the pain. I never saw you again, but from then on I knew that you were always there.

  


_Sorry about the every kiss,_

  
She leaned in, hand firm, gripping the bar. She looked so desperate, trying so hard to be kind when all she wants her way so much.

I need to talk to you, depose you to finish my report. You have already held it up over the deadline.

No

You are under direct orders, Mr Vaughn

Orders from who? I'm not a slave to the Agency anymore.

I have authority to bring you in by force.

I laughed right in her face. Looking like a little girl who has been deigned a sweet, she pouts. Slamming a few pounds on the wood, I get up. She meets me, slightly fumbling in her heels. I turn to leave, but feel her desperate hand on my wrist. Her touch burns me.

  


Remove your hand or I'll remove it for you.

  
Then for the first time I see the three men in dark suits that have blended in with the shadows. I gave into them, only because they didn't make me go back to LA.

But you whispered to me that night, that you didn't trust her, and that I gave in too easily. You told me that I wasn't as free as I thought I was, you told me to run again, but I knew I couldn't. It was a rare moment of clarity that was soon replaced with your voice in my head asking if the weather was still going be nice tomorrow, you wanted to see the view from Primrose Hill. And I answered you back as I lay in bed.

  


_Every kiss you wasted back,_

  
I wish I had never kissed you some days, wish I had never held you in my arms. Not because it would have meant that you would be alive, I'm not so vain that your life or death depended on me, more then one strand of the fates was at work within you. I lost myself in you and for that short moment, it was wonderful. I'm half a man, you took my heart with you. Some days I think that my soul is dead, other days I think that it's just lost in the shadows of sorrow that follow me. Your kiss is lost on a dead man, your love is wasted on one who can't feel. You tell me that you still over me, even though I waste away before you. I can't believe you most days, but your ghost kisses dry my phantom tears.

  


_I think the thing you said was true,_

_I'm going to die alone and sad._

  
I didn't come hereto die but it feels like I may. The room closes in at night, it's hard to breathe with all the ghosts closing in, pressing their hands on the sheets, too close to my body. When I get desperate, desperate for space, that's when you get mad. There are days that I want to escape, but you never let me.

And I wander the streets, trying to lose the past, also searching the dark corners looking for it. I want my looking to end, to know for certain what happened , but it hope it all ends soon. I can't take much more of your eyes following me, gazing out from different faces. You can get really mad, you use to get so frustrated with me before, before all this happened. I know the tone, in some ways it still echos in my mind like we are still in that warehouse.

You yell at me, while I drink sitting on the floor, staring at the open door to the balcony watching all of the city below me, move along in such normalcy. The rum works through my body, poisoning and tempering it. Your voice never goes away, your words get more insistent as the night grows older, getting more forceful to cut through the wall of haze. Although, afterwards you still whisper that you love me, reopening the wound.

Yes, I still love you, but you are killing me with your love.

You don't want me to die, yet you leave me with no choice. How can I stay in this half life of a existence when all I have is the shadow of a life left. There are days when I want to move on, but I can't do it, not now since your presence always pushes me toward denial. Night full of the dead, days full of the living masses.

I drink, you sit with me and ask me questions about my day. I plan my life with my dead - missing - lost girlfriend, and it doesn't feel odd. But you're half alive and I'm half dead, and will both die of grief, alone.

  


  


_The wind's feeling real these days_

_Yeah baby, it hurts me some_

_Never though I'd feel this blue_

_You're almost gone_

_I think I've fallen out of love with you..._

~Lyrics from Ryan Adams - 'Dear Chicago'~


End file.
